Newspapers / Black ink : Black … / Feb. 1, 1998, edition 1 / Page 11
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feature say yes, Sometimes I’d say no. But from the research my campaign staff and I did, I’m the first Black woman to run for this office. And it’s scary. There’s a reason why women, especially Black women don’t run for this office. And my doing this says “Yes, I’m really commit ted to do this.” It makes it a lot easier when I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to make sure the publicity is finished because I know that hopefully it’s going to pay off. What do you feel has been the most difficult experience in this campaign besides the staying up late and getting up early to do publicity? The hardest thing I think has been one, to let people know I’m running. I know a lot of that will be alleviated when my publicity goes up and you see my face plas tered up all around campus. Second, has been trying to figure out how we’re going to get people to go vote. Voter turnout was recorded last year at somewhere around 13.4%. I realize that with some many people running this year, that getting people to vote for me and getting people to vote in general is going to be very important. But still, sometimes if people know someone who is running, they still may not go out to vote. If the line’s too long in the Union, you know how people get. Mo won with the largest percentage ever; it was between 54-58% of the student vote and that was only about 2500-2800 people. It’s very low considering we have a campus of about 24,000. If you win, what are your goals for 98-99? What are things you think need to be changed? There are so many things, I could go on all day. One of the things in my platform is the role of student govern ment. Based on experiences I’ve had my freshman year, I’ve realized how important that office is. This year, we’ve seen a lot of breakdown in communication between our office and other offices and between other groups on campus. I don’t want to call anyone out. There have been a lot of breakdowns in communication. I think that student government next year needs to take a more proactive role in being the link between students and administration, and between students and faculty. As far as that is concerned, the role of student govern ment, a bullet point under that would be accountability. I know a lot of groups and I know I ve heard this from the BSM in particular, is that a lot of people come to your forum, they tell you what you want to hear, you give them your support, and you never hear from them again. When that happens, groups are saying, “Hey, we voted for this person, we gave you our endorsement, how are you going to turn around and just not be involved in this situation? We voted you in so you could do just that.” So one thing we really want to focus on is being account able, and on my platform there are specific ways I want to hold myself accountable. The thing about SBP is that once you’re elected, basically you’re in there. Some peo ple may have a tendency to think “I’m in here, I can do whatever I want now” and that’s not the way it should be. The link between students and the administra tion is crucial . I think that it’s important that with the intellectual climate report coming out this past year, that student government take an active role in looking at the things that are in the intellectual climate report and say “OK, how can we as student government make these things a reality?” I think that if an administration does that successfully then you’ll have a successful year because communication and accountability are impor tant. I was co-chair of the University and Human Relations committee this fall, and that’s mostly where my heart lies because the things I am interested in gener al have tended to lie in the Human relations area. Working with the BCC, Greek issues, gender issues, sex ual orientation issues, I think are very important. I think if student government took a more active role in pro gramming, helping other groups program, it would be so much better for the campus as a whole. You ’re coming in at the point where Affirmative Action is going to be the main key point next year in campus politics. (Agreeing) The main key point. And the thing about that is that I’m the type of person where I know what I believe, but at the same time when you’re in a position such as SBP, sometimes you have to sit back and you have to say, “Why do I believe this?” “Is this what’s best for the University community? Is this what is really going to take our university into the next millennium? Specifically with the topic of Affirmative Action, I know a lot of people who are running this year who wouldn’t care if they just didn’t have to take a stand on that issue, and not necessarily just that issue, a lot of issues in gen eral. They just don’t think that students have a place in dealing with that issue or they don’t think that students should waste their time working on issues like affirma tive action, minority student recruitment, and the BCC for that matter. I think that students really, really need to look at who their candidates are and what they are about. People are going to tell you what you want to hear. People are going to say, “Yeah, I support you,” but the question is do their actions prove that? Do the things that they’ve done in the past back up what they say? The answers to these questions will play a major role in who they vote for. THE BLACK INK FEBRUARY1998 11
Feb. 1, 1998, edition 1
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